Motifs

Campbell’s Explanations For his Dog, Judge

Again and again Campbell gives different, often laughable explanations for
his service dog, Judge. He tells people he has an iron lung, that he has SARS,
that he is color-blind. These answers serve as diversions, intended to point
other characters, as well as the reader, away from the truth, and they act as
one of the most prominent examples in the novel of a character concealing his
feelings and motivations. Campbell won’t even tell Julia why he needs Judge,
when the reason he has Judge—his epilepsy—was his main reason for breaking off
his relationship with her when the two were younger. But Campbell’s bond with
Anna and the rekindling of his romance with Julia challenge this self-defense
mechanism. After Campbell has a seizure in the courtroom, he finally reveals
that Judge is an epilepsy dog that can sense when Campbell is going to have
convulsions. Campbell’s admission counts among the different examples of
characters revealing the reasons for their secrets.

Brian’s Observations on Astronomy

When the narrative shifts to Brian’s perspective, he frequently talks
about the stars. For Brian, astronomy offers a break from the stresses of his
work and family as well as providing him with a frame of reference for
understanding the difficult situation his family is in. When Anna stays with
Brian at the firehouse, for instance, he asks her to go to the building’s roof
with him so they can watch a meteor shower. He thinks to himself that when they
wish on falling stars, what they see is really just a trail of burning debris,
implying that Brian believes it futile to wish on the falling star. Yet he also
uses the experience as a chance to bond with Anna, and when Anna says she knows
that Brian wants to ask her about the lawsuit, he tells her she doesn’t have to
say anything and turns his focus back to the stars. In another instance, Brian
points out the star Vega, which is part of the constellation Lyra, named for
Orpheus’s lyre. Orpheus, Brian tells Anna, loved Eurydice so much that he
wouldn’t let death take her away. The story clearly brings Kate to mind for both
Brian and Anna. In addition, we learn that Sara and Brian even named Anna after
Andromeda, which is a constellation as well as the name of a galaxy visible in
that constellation.

Family photographs

At several points in the book, old family photographs lead characters to
recall the past and reflect on the situations they presently find themselves in.
Kate, for instance, looks at a picture of herself as a baby and, recognizing the
sickly cancer patient she has become, wonders who that child is. Anna notes that
people take childhood photographs as proof that time has passed and that they
were happy once, in contrast with the pain her family feels now. At the end of
the book, Kate and Sara spend hours looking at a picture of Anna, whose death
made Kate’s survival possible. Often members of the family, notably Sara and
Brian, will look back on these family photos and think about how those earlier
versions of themselves and their loved ones seem like strangers now. The motif
works to emphasize how drastically the family has changed, always for the worse,
in the years since Kate became sick.